I, alone at that period, knew the bursting ability of William; and that his granary of knowledge was full to the brim, needing only an opportunity to flood the world with immortal sonnets, Venus and Adonis, and the incubating passion plays that lay struggling in his burning brain for universal recognition.

During the evening young actors, politicians, college students and roystering lords, filled the house and by twelve o'clock Bacchanalian folly ruled the madcaps of the town, while battered Venus with bedraggled hair and skirts languished in sensuous display.

Field requested his friend Marlowe to recite a few lines from "Dr. Faustus" for our instruction and pleasure, and forthwith he gave the soliloquy of Faust, waiting at midnight for Lucifer to carry him to hell, the terrified Doctor exclaiming to the devil:

"Oh mercy! heaven, look not so fierce on me, Adders and serpents, let me breathe awhile; Ugly hell gape not; come not, Lucifer; I'll burn my books; oh! Mephistopheles!"

And then mellowing his sonorous voice, gives thus his classical apostrophe to Helen of Greece:

"Was this the face that launched a thousand ships And burned the topless towers of Illium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss! Her lips suck forth my soul—see where it flies; Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again; Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips, And all is dross that is not Helena. O, thou art fairer than the evening air, Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars! Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter, When he appeared to hapless Semele; More lovely than the monarch of the sky In wanton Arethusa's azure arms; And none but thou shalt be my paramour!"

A loud round of applause greeted the rendition of the classical poem, not only at our own table, but through the entire hall and adjacent rooms.

At a table not far away sat a number of illustrious gentlemen, favorites of Queen Elizabeth and greatly admired by the people.

There sat Sir Walter Raleigh, lately returned from discoveries in America; Francis Bacon, Attorney-General to the Crown; Earl Essex, the court favorite; Lord Southampton, the gayest in the realm; with young Burleigh, Cecil and Leicester, making night melodious with their songs, speeches and tinkling silver wine cups.

The young lords insisted that we give another recitation, pictorial of love and passion. Marlowe declined to say more, but knowing that William had hatched out his crude verses of Venus and Adonis, I insisted that he deliver a few stanzas for the enthusiastic audience, particularly describing the passionate pleadings of Venus to the stallion Adonis.

Without hesitation, trepidation or excuse, William arose in manly attitude and drew a picture of beautiful Venus:

"Sometimes she shakes her head and then his hand, Now gazeth she on him, now on the ground; Sometimes her arms infold him like a band; She would, he will not in her arms be bound; And when from thence he struggles to be gone She locks her lily fingers one in one!

"'Fondling,' she saith, 'since I have hemmed thee here, Within the circuit of this ivory pale, I'll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer; Feed where thou wilt on mountain or in dale; Graze on my lips; and if those hills be dry, Stray lower where the pleasant fountains lie.

"'Within this limit is relief enough, Sweet bottom grass and high delightful plain, Round rising hillocks, brake obscure and rough To shelter thee from tempest and from rain; Then be my deer since I am such a park— No dog shall rouse thee though a thousand bark!'"

When he dropped in his chair the revelers went wild with enthusiasm, and Marlowe and Southampton wished to know where the "Stratford Boy" got the poem!

William smiled, tapped his forehead and tossed off a bumper of brandy to the cheers that still demanded more mental food.

But as it was two by the clock, our friend Field suggested that we retire, when Marlow and himself took us in a carriage to the Devil Tavern, where we slept off our first spree in London.

"O thou invisible spirit of wine, If thou hast no name to be known by, Let us call thee Devil!"

We arose the next morning a little groggy, and William had a shade of melancholy remorse flash over his usually bright countenance.

He abstractedly remarked: "Well, Jack, we are making a fine start for fame and fortune. The stride we took last night, at the Boar's Head, will soon land us in Newgate or Parliament!"

I replied that it made little difference to intellectual artists whether they served their country in prison or in Parliament, for many a man was in Newgate who might honor Parliament, and many secret scoundrels who had not been caught should be inmates of Newgate, or, if equal justice prevailed, their bodies be dangling on the heights of Tyburn!

"A Daniel come to judgment; yea, a Daniel! O wise young judge, how I do honor thee!"

* * * * *

Poise the cause in justice' equal scales, Whose beam stands sure?

It was ten o'clock when we stretched our weary legs under the breakfast table of Meg Mullen, who had prepared for us a quartette of fat mutton chops, with salt pork, baked potatoes, a huge omelet and a boiling pot of black tea, sent, as she said, by the Emperor of China for the guests of the Boar's Head Tavern!

Meg was a jolly wench, and garnished her food with pleasant words and witty quips, believing that love and laughter aided digestion and cheered the traveler in his journey of life.

I reminded William that he had a business engagement with the great theatrical monarch, Richard Burbage, at noon at the Blackfriars.

The Bard was ready for a stroll, and after brushing our clothes and smiling at the variegated guests, we sauntered into the street toward the Thames, and soon found the entrance to the renowned Blackfriars Theatre.

A call-boy ushered us into the presence of the great actor and manager, who greeted us with a snappish "Good morning!"

A number of authors and actors were waiting their turn to see the prince of players, whose signet of approval or disapproval finished their expectations. It was Saturday and pay day.

Turning abruptly to William, the proprietor said: "I understand you know something about theatres and acting?"

"Try me; you shall be my judge."

"Then, sir, from this hour you are appointed assistant property man and assistant prompter for the Blackfriars, at sixteen shillings a week, with chance of promotion, if you deserve it!

"Your business hours shall be from noon, every week day, until five o'clock; and from eight o'clock in the night until eleven o'clock, when you are at liberty until the next day!

"Do you accept the work?"

William promptly replied:

"I accept with immeasurable thanks, and like Caesar of old, I cross the dramatic Rubicon."

The Bard was then introduced to Bull Billings, the chief property man and prompter, who at once initiated William into the machinery secrets of the stage, with its scenes, ropes, chains, masks, moons, gods, swords, bucklers, guns, pikes, torches, wheels, chairs, thrones, giants, wigs, hats, bonnets, robes, brass jewels, kings, queens, dukes, lords, and all the other paraphernalia of dramatic exhibition.

William was now launched upon the ocean of theatrical suns and storms, with Nature for his guide and everlasting glory for his name.

"Lowliness is young ambition's ladder, Whereto the climber turns his face; But when he once attains the utmost round, He then unto the ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend!"



CHAPTER VII.

THEATRICAL DRUDGERY. COMPOSITIONS.

"Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in its head."

Shakspere had now his foot firmly planted on the lower round of the ladder of fame, whose top leaned against the skies of immortality!

The fermentation of composition began again to work within his seething brain, and the daily demands of the Blackfriars spurred him on to emulate if not surpass Kyd, Lodge, Greene and Marlowe.

During the time Shakspere had been a strolling player through the middle towns of England he had studied the works of Ovid and Petrarch, and read with pleasure the sonnets and Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney.

While playing at Kenilworth, the Lady Anne Manners, young and beautiful cousin to the Earl of Leicester, honored the young actor with great praise for his part in playing the Lover in "Love's Conquest." She presented the Bard with a bunch of immortelles, that even when withered, he always kept in an inside pocket, and at various times composed sonnets to his absent admirer, playing Petrarch to another Laura.

The languishing, luscious, lascivious poem of "Venus and Adonis" was really inspired by the remembrance of Miss Manners, and imagination pictured himself and the lady as the principals in the sensuous situation!

William, like Dame Nature, was full of life-sap, that circled through his body and brain with constant motion and sought an outlet for the surplus volume of ideal knowledge, in theatrical action, teaching lessons of right and wrong, with vice and virtue struggling forever for the mastery of mankind.

The Bard worked night and day in his duties as theatrical drudge for the Blackfriars, and made himself valuable and solid with old Burbage, who saw in the young actor a marvelous development of new thought and force, that had never before been seen on the British stage.

In a few weeks Bull Billings was discharged for tyranny and drunkenness, and my friend William was given the place of chief property man and prompter.

Various plays were put on and off the Blackfriars stage, through the hisses or cheers of the motley audience, the autocrats of the "pit" seeming to be the real umpires of the cessation or continuance of the most noted plays.

The last week in October, 1586, was a mournful time for London, as the greatest favorite of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Philip Sidney, was to receive a State funeral at Saint Paul's.

All England went in mourning for the handsome cavalier and poet, who lost his life at the siege of Axel, in the Netherlands, while serving as chief of cavalry under his uncle, the Earl of Leicester.

All business closed in honor of the young hero, and the celebrated military organization, the "Ancient and Honorable Artillery," led more than thirty thousand of the "train bands," who followed in the great procession to Saint Paul's Church.

The sacerdotal service began at noon, and Queen Elizabeth rode in a golden car on a dark purple throne to witness the last rites in honor of her court favorite.

The bells of London churches, temples, turrets, and towers rang continually until sundown, filling the air with a universal requiem of grief, while the black clouds hanging over the metropolis shed showers of tears for the untimely loss of a patriot and a poet.

William and myself saw the funeral car from the steps of St Paul, and as the coffin was carried in on the shoulders of eight stalwart soldiers, dressed in the golden garb of the Horse Battalions, we bowed our heads in holy adoration to the memory and valor of the sonnet-maker—lost in eternal sleep.

"Come, sleep, O sleep, the certain knot of peace, The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe, The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release— The indifferent judge between the high and low!"

How truthful this extract from one of Sidney's sonnets!

He was a synonym of bravery and politeness; for being carried from the field of battle, thirsty and bleeding, he called for a cup of water, and just as he was lifting it to his lips a fatally wounded soldier was being carried by who fixed his longing eyes eagerly on the cup—and instanter, the gay and gallant Sidney delivered the drink to the poor soldier, saying: "Thy necessity is greater than mine!"

Noble self-sacrifice, elemental generosity, imperial nature, sublime and benevolent in thought and act!

On our return to the Devil Tavern for supper we found Manager Burbage, of Blackfriars, awaiting us. He was in great haste and desired William to look over a play that had been submitted by Greene and Lodge, who composed it jointly.

It was a comedy-tragedy, entitled "Looking Glass of London," in three rambling acts, and while Burbage was disposed to take the play and pay for it, he desired that Shakspere should give it such ripping corrections as he thought best.

This was surely showing great confidence in a young actor and author—to criticise the play of acknowledged dramatists who had been the talk of the town.

Shakspere modestly remarked: "I fear, sir, your friends, Lodge and Greene, will not like or tolerate my cutting of their play."

"Care not for their opinion! Do as I say, and have the play ready for staging Monday afternoon at two o'clock."

"Your command is law, and I obey," said the Bard—and out rushed the bluffing, busy Burbage.

The constant circulation of bohemian customers, day and night about the Devil's Tavern, was not conducive to careful composition of plays, and William and myself moved to modest quarters near Paris Garden, kept by a Miss Maggie Mellow, a blonde maiden of uncertain age.

William continued to perform his theatrical duties diligently, while I was engaged at the printing shop of Field, translating historic, dramatic and poetic works from Latin authors, thus piecing out the price of food, clothes and shelter in the whirlpool of London joy and misery.

During my apprenticeship with Sam Granite, as a marble cutter, I spent my nights with Master Hunt studying the intricate windings of the Latin language, and became proficient in the translation of ancient authors, delving also into the philosophy of Greek roots, with its Attic phrases and Athenian eloquence.

My parents desired me to leave off the trade of stone cutting and prepare for the priesthood, where I could make an easier living, working on the fears, egotism and hopes of mankind.

I was always too blunt to play the velvet philosopher and saint-like character of a sacerdotal vicaro of any church or creed, feeling full well that the so-called divine teacher and pupil know just as much about the "hereafter" as I do—and that's nothing! Put not thy faith in wind, variable and inconstant.

So, a life of bohemian hack-work for printers, publishers and theatrical managers seemed best suited to my nature, giving me perfect freedom of thought and a disposition to express my honest opinion to prince or peasant, in home, church or state.

God is God, and Nature is His representative!

While man, vain creature of an hour, Depressed by grief or blessed by power Is but a shadow and a name— A flash of evanescent fame!

Most of the dramatic writers during the reigns of Henry the Eighth, Elizabeth, James the First, and Charles the Second, were graduates of Oxford, Cambridge or other classical halls of learning. They borrowed their plots and characters from ancient history and endeavored to galvanize them into English subjects, tickling the ears of the groundlings, as well as their royal patrons with Grecian and Roman translations of lofty allegorical and mythological conceptions.

AEschylus, Euripides, Sophocles and Homer, with Terence, Tacitus, Virgil, Horace and Ovid, were constantly pillaged for thoughts to piece out the theatrical robes and blank verse eloquence of playwrights who only received for their best accepted works from five to twenty pounds; proprietors and stage managers driving hard bargains with these brilliant, bacchanalian and impecunious bohemians.

The winter and spring of 1587-8 was a busy time for William. In addition to his prompting and casting the various plays for Burbage, he was engaged in collecting his sonnets, putting finishing touches on "Venus and Adonis," as well as composing the "Rape of Lucrece," a Roman epic, based on historic truth.

He had also planned and mapped out the English play of "Henry the Fourth," taken from an old historical play, and was figuring on two comedies—"Midsummer Night's Dream" and the "Merry Wives of Windsor."

Often when entering his workroom at twelve o'clock at night, or six o'clock in the morning, I found him scratching, cutting, and delving away at his literary bench and oak chest.

He could work at three or four plays alternately, and, from crude plots taken out of ancient history, novels, religious or mythological tableaus, devised his characters and put words in their mouths that burned in the ears of British yeomen, tradesmen, professional sharpers and lords and ladies who crowded the benches and boxes of the Blackfriars.

He reminded me of an expert cabinet-maker, who had piled up in a corner of his shop a variety lot of rough timber, from which he fashioned and manufactured the most exquisite dressers, sofas and bureaus, dovetailing each piece of oak, rosewood or mahogany, with exact workmanship, and then with the silken varnish of his genius, sending his wares out to the rushing world to be admired, and transmitted to posterity, with perfect faith in the endurance of his creations!

In putting the finishing touches on the fifth act of a play he would quickly change to the composition of the first act of another, and, with lightning rapidity embellish the characters in the third act of some comedy, tragedy or history, that constantly occupied his multifarious brain.

His working den at the Blackfriars was crowded with a mass of theatrical literary productions, ancient and modern, while our lodging rooms were piled up with Latin, Greek, Spanish and French translations.

Manager Burbage, Dick Field and even Chris Marlowe were constantly patronizing the wonderful William, and supplied him with the iron ore products of the ancient and middle ages, which he quickly fashioned into the laminated steel of dramatic excellence.

"Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus; and we petty men Walk under his huge legs and peep about To find ourselves dishonorable graves."



CHAPTER VIII.

GROWING LITERARY RENOWN. ROYAL PATRONS.

"Follow your envious courses, men of malice; You have Christian warrant for them, and, no doubt, In time will find their fit rewards."

* * * * *

"O beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock The meat it feeds on."

The literary and dramatic world of London in the years 1589 to 1592 was stirred with pride and astonishment at the productions of William Shakspere, and from the tavern and guilds of tradesmen to the crack clubs of authors, lords and royalty itself, the Dramatic Magician of the Blackfriars was praised to the skies and sought for by even Queen Elizabeth, who saw more than another Edmund Spenser to glorify her reign and flash her name down the ages with even finer, luminous colors than bedecked the sylvan pathway of the Faerie Queen!

The Earl of Leicester was one of the first great men of England to recognize the divine accomplishments of the Warwickshire boy who had made his first theatrical adventures through the domain of the old Earl, and who was ever the friend of old John Shakspere, the impecunious and agnostic father of our brilliant Bard.

On the death of the old Earl in the autumn of 1588, his domain reverted to his stepson, the young Earl of Essex, who continued to be the patron of letters and often attended the Blackfriars, with his friend, the handsome and intellectual Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, who took the greatest interest in the plays of "Love's Labor's Lost," "Two Gentlemen of Verona," "King John," "Henry the Fourth," "Henry the Fifth," and "Henry the Sixth," that were then fermenting in the brain of William.

He had ransacked the history of Hollingshead and others to illustrate on the stage the civil wars between the houses of York and Lancaster, known as the war of the Red and White Roses, with canker and thorn to pester each royal clan and bring misery on the British people because of a family quarrel!

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."

* * * * *

"What have Kings that privates have not too, Save ceremony?"

The jealousy of Kyd, Lodge and Greene continued to secretly knife the Stratford butcher boy, but the more they tried to cough him down the more he rose in public estimation, until finally these little vipers of spite and spleen gave up their secret scandal chase, when, like a roebuck from the forest of Arden or Caledonian heather crags, he flashed out of sight of all the dramatic and poetic hounds who pursued him, and ever after looked down from the imperial heights of Parnassus at the dummies of theatrical pretense.

They accused him of wholesale plagiarism and of robbing the archives of every land for raw material to build up his comedies, tragedies and histories.

He laughed and worked on, night and day, acknowledging the "soft impeachment" of his literary integrity, but at the same time defied them to equal or surpass the marvelous characters he created for the edification and glory of mankind!

Yet, while he had a few envious literary, political and religious detractors, he was building up constantly a bulwark of sentimental and material friends in London that kept his name on the tongue of thinkers in home, tavern, club and palace.

The keen and generous Burbage knew the intrinsic value of Shakspere, and to tie him to the interest of the Blackfriars, he gradually increased the Bard's salary and gave him an interest in the stock company. Yet, other theatres staged his plays.

Edmund Spenser, the greatest rhythmic poet of his day, author of the "Faerie Queen," and prime favorite of Sidney and Queen Elizabeth, was lavish in his praise of the rising dramatist, while Michael Drayton and Christopher Marlowe vied with each other in admiration of the newly discovered star of intellectual brilliancy that glittered unceasingly in the sky of poetic and philosophic letters.

Essex, Southampton, Raleigh, Bacon, Monmouth, Derby, Norfolk, Northumberland, Percy, Burleigh, Cecil, Montague, and many other lords of London club life, gave a ready adherence to Shakspere, and after his mighty acting on the Blackfriars and other stages, struggled with each other as to who should have the honor of entertaining him at the gay midnight suppers that delighted the amusement world of London.

One of the most valuable friends William encountered in London was John Florio, a Florentine, the greatest linguist of his day, who had traveled in all lands and gathered nuggets of thought in every clime. He spoke Spanish, Italian, French, German and Greek, with the accent of a native, and had but recently translated the works of Montaigne, the great French philosopher. The Herbert-Southampton family patronized him.

When not employed at the various theatres, the Stratford miracle could be found at the rooms of his friend Florio, at the "Red Lion," across the street from Temple Bar, where law students, bailiffs and barristers made day and night merry with their professional antics.

William employed Florio to teach him the technical and philosophic merits of the Greek and Latin languages, and at the same time furnish him with ancient stories that he might dramatize into English classics, and astonish the native writers by dressing up old subjects in new frocks, cloaks, robes and crowns.

Florio would often read by the hour, gems of Latin, Greek and French philosophy, and explain to us the intricate phrases of Virgil, Ovid, Terence, Homer, AEschylus, Plutarch, Demosthenes, Plato, Petrarch and Dante, while William drank up his imparted knowledge as freely and quickly as the sun in his course inhales the sparkling dewdrops from garden, vale and mountain.

In the spring of 1591 William and myself paid a flying visit to Stratford, the Bard to pay up some family debts and bury a brother who had recently migrated to the land of imagination.

The mother and father of William were delighted at the London success of their son, and Anne Hathaway seemed to be mellowed and mollified by the guineas William emptied into her lap, while Hammet and Judith, the rollicking children, were rampant with delight at the toys, sweetmeats and dresses presented as Easter offerings.

No matter what the incompatibility of temper between William and Anne, he never forgot to send part of his wages for the support of herself and children, and although he was a "free lance" among the ladies of London, he maintained the "higher law" of family purity and morality.

When he violated any of the ten commandments, he did it with his eyes open, and took the consequent mental or physical punishment with stoic indifference. He never called on others to shoulder his sins, but on the contrary he often bore the burden of cowardly "friends," who made him the "scapegoat" for their own iniquity—a common class of scoundrels.

He never bothered himself about the religion manufacturers of mankind, knowing that the whole scheme, from the Oriental sunworshipers to the quarreling crowd of Pagans, Hebrews, Christians and Moslems, was nothing but a keen financial syndicate or trust to keep sacerdotal sharpers in place and power at the expense of plodding ignorance, hope and bigotry!

The night we started back for London, by jaunting car, on the road to Oxford, the Bard was in a mood of lofty contemplation. He had stowed away in the bottom of the car, a mass of school-day and strolling-player compositions, evolved in the rush of vanished years.

"William," said I, "can you tell me anything about the silence of those sparkling, eternal stars and planets?"

He instantly replied:

I question the infinite silence, And endeavor to fathom the deep That rests in the ocean of knowledge And dreams in the heaven of sleep; And I soar with the wing of science, Its mysterious realm to explore, But the wail of the wild sea breakers Drowns my soul in the Nevermore; For the answer of finite wisdom Is as fickle as ambient air, And my wreckage of hopes are scattered On the rocks and shores of despair!

Arriving at the Crown Tavern, in Oxford, we were, as usual, received by the old Boniface Devanant and his handsome wife, with warm words and luxurious table cheer. After a day and night of reasonable revelry, we proceeded on our way to London, and in due course found our sunny lodgings at the home of Maggie Mellow.

The night after our arrival Sir Walter Raleigh gave a grand banquet at the Mermaid Club to the principal wits of London.

Burbage, Florio, Field, William and myself were invited as special guests, in honor of the poetic and dramatic association.

Representative authors and actors of the various theatrical companies were present at the festive war of wits.

The Queen's men, and those who played under the patronage of Leicester, Pembroke, Burleigh, and the Lord Admiral were there, while Henslowe, the owner of the Rose Theatre on Bankside, with his son-in-law, Edward Alleyn, the noted actor, shone in all their borrowed glory.

Spenser, Drayton, Marlowe, Kyd, Nash, Chettle, Peele, Greene, and a young author, Ben Jonson, were a few of the literary luminaries present.

A contingent of London lords, patrons of authors and actors graced the scene. Essex, Southampton, Pembroke, Cecil, Mortimer, Burleigh and Lord Bacon occupied prominent places at the angle table of the club, where Raleigh sat as master of ceremonies.

Promptly at eleven o'clock, the great courtier, sailor and discoverer arose from his elevated chair and proposed a toast to the Virgin and Fairy Queen!

All stood to their tankards and drank unanimously to the Virgin Queen.

I thought I observed a flash of secret smiles pictured on the lips of Essex, Spenser, Bacon and Raleigh when Elizabeth was toasted as the Virgin Queen; and William whispered in my ear:

"Her virtues graced with eternal gifts, Do breed love's settled passions in my heart!"

After tremendous cheers were given for the Queen, Sir Walter, in his blandest mood said: "We are glorified by having with us to-night the greatest poet in the realm, and I trust Sir Edmund Spenser will be gracious enough to give us a few lines from the 'Faerie Queen.'"

Sir Edmund arose in his place and said:

"In Una, the Fairy Queen, I beheld the purity and innocence of Elizabeth, and in the lion of passion, hungry from the forest, I saw her conquer even in her naked habiliments."

"One day, nigh weary of the irksome way From her unhasty beast she did alight; And on the grass her dainty limbs did lay, In secret shadow, far from all men's sight, From her fair head her fillet she undight, And laid her stole aside, her angel's face, As the great Eye of Heaven, shone bright And made a sunshine in the shady place— Did never mortal eye behold such grace! It fortuned, out of the thickest wood A ramping Lion rushed suddenly, Hunting full greedy after savage blood; Soon as the Royal Virgin he did spy, With gaping month at her ran greedily, To have at once devoured her tender corse; But to the prey when as he drew more nigh— His bloody rage assuaged with remorse, And with the sight amazed, forgot his furious force!"

Spenser resumed his seat, while a whirl of echoing applause waved from floor to rafter.

Then Sir Walter remarked:

"We are honored to-night by the presence of the counsel extraordinary of Queen Elizabeth, the orator and philosopher, Sir Francis Bacon, who will, I trust, give us a sentiment in honor of Her Majesty, the patron of art, literature and liberty!"

Bacon, handsome, proud, but obsequious, then arose and addressed the jolly banqueters as follows:

"Gentlemen: The toast of the evening to her gracious Majesty, Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen, meets my soul-lit approval, and had I the wings of fancy, instead of the plodding pedals of practical administration, I should raise her virtuous statue to the skies until its pinnacle shone above the uplands of omnipotence!

"Philosophy teaches us that vice and virtue are at eternal war, and that whether married or single, the happiest state of man or woman is personal independence!

"Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed, Or pain his head; Those that live single, take it for a curse, Or do things worse; Some would have children, those that have them mourn, Or wish they were gone; What is it then, to have or have no wife, But single thraldom, or a double strife!

"My friends: The ocean is the solitary handmaid of eternity. Cold and salt cure alike!

"Men are like ants, crawling up and down.

"Some carry corn, some carry their young, and all go to and fro—at last a little heap of dust!"

The states' attorney took his seat, with frantic applause rattling in his ears.

Although the sentiments of Bacon were variable, mixed, foreign and epigrammatic, they received great attention; for no matter who may be the speaker at a banquet where royalty and power are the subjects at issue, there will be great and tremendous cheering by little sycophants who expect reward, and of course, by those patriots who have already received favors from the administration pie counter.

Sir Walter at last arose and said "that although the hour was late, or, more properly speaking, early, he earnestly desired the noble gentlemen present to hear one whose fame, in the world of dramatic letters, like the morning sun, had already flashed upon the horizon and rapidly approached the high noon of earthly immortality—William Shakspere, of Stratford-on-Avon!"

Then could be heard roof-lifting cheers by all present, who had often heard the Bard in his lofty language and kingly strides at the Blackfriars.

William, in the flush of self-conscious, imperial, splendid manhood exclaimed:

"Gentlemen:

Your toast of glory to The Virgin Queen Cracks high heaven with reverberation, And through the ambient air, sonorous, The echoing muses mingle the Harmony of the spheres with celestial repetition! Elizabeth, I lift my song to thee, In holy adoration To echo down the flowing tide of ages!

Within the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rhyme In praise of ladies dead and gallant knights, Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I know their antique pen would have expressed Even such a beauty as you master now. So all their praises are but prophecies Of this our time, all you prefiguring; And, for they looked, but with divining eyes, They had not skill enough your worth to sing; For me, which now behold these present days Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come, Can yet the lease of my true love control, Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom. The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured, And the sad augurs mark their own presage; Incertainties now crown themselves assured, And peace proclaims olives of endless age. Now with the drops of the most balmy time, My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes, Since spite of him I'll live in the poor rhyme While he sweeps over dull and speechless tribes. And thou, in this shall find thy monument, When tyrant crests and tombs of brass are spent!"

Rapturous and universal praise and applause greeted William and his immortal sonnets; and if any critical reader or author will take pains to delve into and scan the poetry and philosophy of Spenser and Bacon with that of Shakspere, they will quickly and honestly come to the conclusion that the former writers are merely rushlights to the flashing electric lights of the Divine Bard!

To paraphrase the encomium of Shakspere to Cleopatra would fit the greatness of himself:

"Age cannot wither him, nor custom stale His infinite variety; other men cloy The appetites they feed; but he makes hungry Where most he satisfies!"



CHAPTER IX.

BOHEMIAN HOURS. WESTMINSTER ABBEY. "LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST."

"I have ventured Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders This many summers in a sea of glory."

The literary bohemians of London three hundred years ago were an impecunious and jealous lot of human pismires, who built their dens, carried their loads, and were filled with vaulting ambition just the same as we see them to-day.

The hack-writer for publishers, the actor for theatrical managers and the author of growing renown belonged to clubs and tavern coteries, pushing their way up the rocky heights of fame, and struggling, as now, for bread, clothes and shelter, many of the Bacchanalian creatures dying from hunger at the foothills of their ambition; and instead of winning a niche in the columned aisles of Westminster Abbey, dropped dead in some back alley or gloomy garret, to be carted away by the Beadle to the voracious Potter's field.

They often courted Dame Suicide, who never fails to relieve the wicked, wretched, insane or desperate from their intolerable situation.

"Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness, And fear'st to die? Famine is in thy cheeks, Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes, Content and beggary hang upon thy back; The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law!"

How often at the Miter or Falcon taverns have I seen these little great literary men swell like a toad or puff like a pigeon at the flattery bestowed on them by fawning bohemians, meaner than themselves, who sought a midnight snack and a tankard of foaming ale.

Of all the despicable and miserable creatures I have ever known it is the poor starving devil, with latent genius, who attempts to pay court to a cad, snob, or drunken lord around the refuse of literary or sporting clubs in midnight hours.

William was always very kind to these threadbare wanderers, and although they often gave him pen prods behind his back, he never betrayed any recognition of their envious stings, but like the lion in his jungle, brushed these busy bees away by the underbrush of his philosophy.

He mildly rebuked their pretense, but relieved their immediate wants, impressing upon them the study of Nature and not the blandishments of art, having the appearance of Oriental porcelain or Phoenician glass, when it was really crude crockery painted to deceive the sight and auctioned off to the unwary purchaser as genuine material.

How many authors, artists and actors of to-day follow in the path of their London ancestors who blow, and brag, and strut in midnight clubs and taverns to the pity and disgust of their table tooters.

Speaking one evening at the Red Lion, in the rooms of Florio, I asked William how it was that his plays were so successful, while those of other authors had almost been banished from the dramatic boards. He at once replied:

I draw my plots from Nature's law To sound the depths of human life, And through her realm I find no flaw In all her seeming, varied strife; The good and bad are near allied; With sweet and sour forever blent, While vice and virtue side by side Exist in every continent. The poison vine that climbs the tree, Is just as great in Nature's plan As every mount and every sea Displayed below for little man. And every ant and busy bee Shall teach us how to build and toil If we would mingle with the free, Who plough the seas or till the soil.

I shall never forget the visit Shakspere and myself paid to the cloistered, columned, pinnacled proportions of Westminster Abbey.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon of the 24th of December, 1592.

The living London world was rushing in great multitudes by alley, lane, street and park preparing for the celebration of Christmas Eve.

Vanity Fair was decked off with palm, spruce, pine, myrtle, ivy and holly to garnish home, hall and shop in honor of Jesus, who had been crucified nearly sixteen hundred years before for telling the truth and tearing down the vested arrogance of religious tyranny.

A bright winter sun was gilding the tall towers of the Abbey with golden light, and the mullioned windows were blazing over the surrounding buildings like flashes of fire.

We entered the court of Westminster through the old school by way of a long, low passage, dimly lighted corridors, with glinting figures of old teachers in black gowns, moving like specters from the neighboring tombs.

As we passed along by cloistered walls and mural monuments to vanished glory, we were soon within the interior of the grand old Abbey.

Clustered columns of gigantic dimensions, with lofty arches springing from wall to nave met the eye of the beholder, and stunned by the solemn surroundings, vain man wonders at his own handiwork, trembling with doubt amid the monumental glory of Old Albion.

The Abbey clock struck the hour of five as William and myself stood in deep contemplation at Poets' corner.

The reverberating tones of time echoed from nave to floor, through cloistered walls and columned aisles, noting the passing hour and ages, like billows of sound rolling over the graves of vanished splendor.

Here crumble the dust and effigies of courtiers, warriors, statesmen, lords, dukes, kings, queens and authors; and yet, there is no spot in the Abbey that holds such an abiding interest for mankind as the modest corner where lie the dust of noted poets and philosophers.

The great and the heroic of the world may be bravely admired in lofty contemplation of nationality, but a feeling of fondness creeps over the traveler or reader when he bows at the grave of buried genius, while tears of remembrance even wash away the sensuous Bacchanalian escapades of impulsive, poetic revelers.

The author, touched by the insanity of genius, must ever live in the mind of the reader, and while posterity shall forget even warriors, kings and queens, it never fails to preserve in marble, granite, bronze and song the name and fame of great poets.

David, Solomon, Job, Homer, Horace, Ovid, Angelo, Dante and Plutarch are deeply imbedded in the memory of mankind, and although great kingdoms, empires and dynasties, have passed away to the rubbish heap of oblivion, the poet, musician, painter, and sculptor still remain to thrill and beautify life, and teach hope of immortality beyond the grave.

After gazing on the statues of abbots, Knights Templar, Knights of the Bath, bishops, statesmen, kings and queens, many mutilated by time and profane hands, William stood by the coffin of Edward the Confessor and mournfully soliloquized:

Westminster! lofty heir of Pagan Temple; Imperial in stone; a thousand years Crowns the record of thy inheritance, Gilding the glory of thy ancient fame, With imperishable deeds— Liberty of thought and action, shall Forever cluster about thy classic form; While new men with new creeds, and reason, Shall overturn the religions of to-day, As thou hast invaded and destroyed The Pagan, Roman rules of antiquity. These marble hands and faces appealing For remembrance, to animated dust Appeal in vain, for we, whose footfalls Only sound in marble ears, cold and listless, Shall ourselves follow where they led, dying Not knowing the mysterious secrets of the grave. Here the victor and vanquished, side by side, Sleep in dreamless rest, Kings and Queens in life, Battling for power, all conquered by tyrant Death, Whose universal edict, irrevocable, Levels Prince and Peasant, in impalpable dust. Crowns to-day, coffins to-morrow, with monuments Mossed over, letter-cracked, undecipherable As the mummied remains of Egyptian Kings. Vain, vain, are all the monuments of man, The greatest only live a little span; We strut and shine our passing day, and then— Depart from all the haunts of living men, With only Hope to light us on the way Where billions passed beneath the silent clay; And, none have yet returned to tell us where We'll bivouac beyond this world of care; And these dumb mouths, with ghostly spirits near Will not express a word into mine ear, Or tell me when I leave this sinning sod If I shall be transfigured with my God!

In September, 1592, the second play of Shakspere, "Love's Labor's Lost," was given at the Blackfriars, to a fine audience.

He took the characters of the play from a French novel, based on an Italian plot, and wove around the story a lot of glittering talk to please the lords and ladies who listened to the silly gabble of their prototypes.

Ferdinand, King of Navarre, and his attendant lords are a set of silly beaux who propose to retire from the world and leave women alone for the space of three years.

The Princess of France and her ladies in waiting, with the assistance of a gay lord named Boyet, made an incursion into the Kingdom of Navarre and break into the solitude of the students.

Nathaniel, a parson, and Holofernes, a pedant schoolmaster, are introduced into the play by William to illustrate the asinine pretensions of ministers and pedagogues, who are constantly introducing Latin or French words in their daily conversation, for the purpose of impressing common people with their great learning, when, in fact, they only show ridiculous pretense and expose themselves to the contempt of mankind.

There are very few noted philosophic sentiments in the play, and the attempt at wit, of the clown, the constable and Holofernes, the schoolmaster, fall very flat on the ear of an audience, while the rhymes put in the mouth of the various characters are unworthy of a boy fourteen years of age.

I remonstrated with William about injecting his alleged poetry into the love letters sent by the lords and ladies, but he replied that young love was such a fool that any kind of rhyme would suit passionate parties who were playing "Jacks and straws" with each other.

Ferdinand, the King, opens up the play with a grand dash of thought:

"Let fame that all hunt after in their lives, Live registered upon our brazen tombs, And then grace us in the disgrace of death, When, spite of cormorant devouring time, The endeavor of this present breach may buy That honor, which shall bait his scythe's keen edge To make us heirs of all eternity."

Lord Biron, who imagines himself in love with the beautiful Rosaline, soliloquizes in this fashion:

"What? I! I love! I sue! I seek a wife! A woman that is like a German clock, Still a repairing; ever out of frame. And never going aright, being a watch, But being watched that it may still go right! Is not Love a Hercules Still climbing trees in the Hesperides? Subtle as a sphinx; as sweet and musical As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony!"

Holofernes, the Latin pedagogue, criticising Armado, exclaims:

Novi hominem tanquam te. His humor is lofty, his discourse peremptory. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.

And then Holofernes winds up the play with the Owl and Cuckoo song, a rambling verse, Winter speaking:

When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick, the shepherd, blows his wail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipped and ways be foul, When nightly sings the staring owl To-who; Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note While greasy Joan doth scum the pot.



CHAPTER X.

QUEEN ELIZABETH. WAR. SHAKSPERE IN IRELAND.

"Now all the youth of England are on fire And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies; Now thrive the armorers, and honor's thought Hangs solely in the breast of every man.

* * * * *

Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war!"

The reign of Queen Elizabeth was a most glorious one for the material and mental progress of England, but most disastrous for Philip of Spain, Louis and Henry of France, Mary of Scotland, O'Neil, O'Brien, Desmond and Tyrone of Ireland.

The Reformation of Martin Luther, a Catholic priest, against the faith and financial exactions of the Pope of Rome, cracked from the Catholic sky like a clap of thunder from the noonday sun, and reverberated over the globe with startling detonation.

The cry of personal liberty and personal responsibility to God, went out from the German cloister like a roaring storm and echoed in thunder tones among the columned aisles of the Vatican.

Entrenched audacity and mental tyranny was broken from its ancient pedestal, as if an earthquake had shivered the Roman dominions, leaving sacerdotal precedents and papal bulls in the back-alley of bigotry and bloated ignorance.

People began to think and wonder how they had been bamboozled for centuries by a set of educated harlequins, who, in all lands and climes exhibited their antics and nostrums for the delectation and digestion of infatuated fools! Millions yet living!

Queen Elizabeth's elevation to the throne of England was a bid for the banished and persecuted Protestants to return from foreign lands and again pursue their puritanical philosophy.

Pope Paul demanded of Elizabeth that all the church lands, monasteries and cathedrals confiscated by her father, Henry the Eighth, be restored to the Roman hierarchy, and that she make confession and submission to the divine authority of the Catholic Church.

Although religion and civil law was in a very chaotic state, Queen Bess was not at all disturbed by the threats of the Vatican or the Armada of Spain. With old Lord Cecil as her prime counsel, she never hesitated to believe in her own destiny, and, like her opponents, the Jesuits, the end always justified the means. When it was necessary to rob or kill anybody, the Queen did so without any compunction of conscience.

She did not care for religion one way or the other, and flattered the Catholic and Protestant lords alike, manipulating them for her personal and official advantage. Victory at any price. Business Bessy!

She professed great love for her sister, Mary Queen of Scots, but to foil the French Catholics and satisfy the Scotch and English Protestants, Lizzie cut off the head of her beautiful sister. She professed great sorrow after Mary's head was detached.

Essex and Raleigh, and many other royal courtiers were sent to the Tower and the block by this red-headed, snaggle-tooth she devil, who only thought of her own physical pleasures and official vanities, sacrificing everything to her tyrannical ambition. She died in an insane, frantic fit.

Yet, with all her devilish conduct, she pushed the material interest of Englishmen ahead for five hundred years, and by her patronage of sailors, warriors, poets and philosophers, gave the British letters a boom that is felt to the present day, and through Shakspere's lofty lines, shall continue down the ages to tell mankind that nothing on earth is lasting but honest work and eternal truth.

Contention and war is the natural condition of mankind; for all animated nature, from birth to death, struggles for food and shelter.

The birds of the air, animals of the land and fishes of the sea, fight and devour each other for food, while man, the great robber and murderer of all, delights in destruction, and from his first appearance on earth to the present day, has been earnestly engaged in emigrating from land to land, seeking whom he may rob and kill for personal wealth and power! Doing it to-day more than ever.

Civilization is only refined barbarism; and this very hour the unions of the world are inventing and manufacturing powder, guns and terrible battle ships for the purpose of robbing and killing each other in the next war, nearly at hand. Japan and Russia will tear each other to pieces.

Peace is only a slight resting spell for the nations to trade with each other and make secret preparations to finally kill and secure increased dominion.

The minions of monarchy and lovers of liberty have invariably despised each other, and waited only favorable opportunity to rob and murder. Even now, they crouch like lions at bay, and fight to the death.

Liberty is forging ahead with ten league boots and monarchy is silently, but surely being relegated to the tomb of defeat.

Of course, right is right in the abstract, but might is the winning card in the lottery of Fate, and that nation having the most brave men, money and guns will come out victorious!

Strong nations have become stronger by robbing and killing weaker nations, and the British Government for a thousand years—particularly from the bloody reigns of Elizabeth and Oliver Cromwell—can boast that it has never failed to rob and kill the weak, while truckling and fawning at the feet of Russia and the Republic of the United States, which will soon extend from Bering Sea and Baffin's Bay to the Isthmus of Panama—absorbing Canada, Cuba, Mexico and Central America within its imperial jurisdiction. We intend to, and shall rule the world!

Then, this vast Republic, looking over the globe from the dome of our national Capitol, at Washington, can invite all lands to banquet at the table of the Goddess of Liberty, and in mercy to the blind tyranny of monarchy we may lay a wreath of myrtle on the graves of lords, earls, dukes, kings, queens and emperors, to be only remembered as the nightmare of tyranny, extirpated from the earth forever. God grant their speedy official destruction!

The gentle reader (of course) will excuse this enthusiastic digression from the story of Queen Bess and my soul friend William Shakspere.

If they were present at this moment, they would not dare deny the truth of this memory narrative.

In the summer of 1595, the periodical plague of London was thinning out the inhabitants of that dirty city. In the lower part of the city skirting the Thames, the sewerage was very bad and but the poorest sanitary rules existed. After a hard rain, the lanes, alleys and streets ran with a stream of putrefaction, as the offal from many tenement houses was thrown in the public highway, where the rays from the hot sun created malarial fever or the black plague.

At such times the theatres and churches were closed, and those who could get out of London, by land or water, fled to the inland shires of England, the mountains of Scotland or to the heather hills of Ireland.

Edmund Spenser, the poet and Secretary of Lord Gray for Ireland, invited William and myself to visit his Irish estate near the city of Cork.

One bright morning in May, we boarded the good ship Elizabeth, near the Tower, passed out of Gravesend, then into the channel and steered our way to Bantry Bay, until we landed in the cove of Cork, as the church bells were ringing devotees to early mass.

The green fields and hills of Ireland were blooming in rustic beauty, the thrush sang from every hawthorn bush, the blackbird was busy in the fields filching grain from the ploughman, the lark, in his skyward flight poured a stream of melody on the air, and all Nature seemed happy, but man.

He it is who makes the blooming productive earth miserable, with his voracious greed for gold and power.

Elizabeth was then waging war with the various Irish chieftains, importing cunning Scotchmen and brutal Englishmen as soldiers and traders to colonize the lands and destroy the homes of what she was pleased to call "Barbarous, rebellious, wild Irish."

Whenever any strong power invades a weaker one for the purpose of robbery and official murder (war), the tyrant labels his victim—a "Rebel!"

That is, the original owner of the land destined to be robbed is regarded as bigoted, barbarous and rebellious, unless he submits to be robbed, banished and murdered for the edification and glory of freebooters, thieves, tyrants, assassins and foreign man hunters.

Leinster, Munster, Ulster and Connaught, the four provinces of Ireland, had been marked out for settlement by Henry the Eighth and Queen Elizabeth, and hordes of English "carpetbaggers" and soldiers were turned loose on the island to rob, burn and destroy the natives.

As soon as counties and provinces were conquered, the military and lordly pets of the various monarchs were given large grants of the lands stolen from the people.

O'Neil, O'Brien, Desmond, O'Donnell, O'Connor, Burke, Clanrickard and Tyrone disputed every inch of ground with Pellam, Mountjoy, Gray, Essex, Raleigh and Cromwell; and, although the original commanders and owners of the soil have been virtually banished or killed, their posterity has the proud satisfaction of knowing that more than a million of Englishmen and Scotchmen have been killed by the "Wild Irish," and the battle for liberty shall still go on till the Saxon robber relinquishes his blood sucking tentacles on the Emerald Isle.

Poet Spenser and Sir Walter Raleigh were rewarded by Queen Elizabeth with thousands of acres, confiscated from the great estate of the Earl of Desmond, who lived at the castle of Kilcolman, near the town of Doneraile.

Spenser paid for his stolen land by writing a dissertation on the way to conquer and kill off the Irish race, regarding them no more than the wild beasts of the forest. He also flattered Queen Bess by composing a lot of flattering verse, called the "Faerie Queen," and made her believe she was the beautiful, sweet, mild, chaste, angelic individual that had thrilled his imagination in the royal realms of dreamland.

What infernal lies political courtiers, religious ministers and even poets have told to flatter the vanity of governors, presidents, kings, queens, popes and emperors!

Yet in all the grand sentiments Shakspere evolved out of his volcanic brain, he never bent the knee to absolute vice, but pictured the horrors of royalty in its most devilish attitudes. His pen was never purchased against truth.

We remained at Kilcolman Castle with Spenser for about ten days riding and sporting, and then with an escort of soldiers, were piloted through the "Rebel" counties on to Dublin, where the head of O'Neil graced one of the "Red" walls of that unlucky city.

On our route from Cork to Dublin we beheld misery and ruin in every form, burned cabins, churches, monasteries and bridges, and starving women and children on the roadside, crouching under bushes, straw stacks and leaking sheds, with smouldering turf fires crackling on the ashes of despair!

We took shipping the next morning for Liverpool, as William was very anxious to get away from the land of funeral wails, where the cry of the "wake" over some dead peasant or defiant "Rebel" echoed on the air continually.

Where sorrow in her weeping form, Shed tears in sunshine, and in storm, While o'er the land, a reign of blood Was running like a mountain flood!

As we pushed away from the sight of the Irish hills, Shakspere, leaning against the foremast, in pathetic tone exclaimed:

Farewell, old Erin, land of nameless sorrow, Albion crushes thee for opinion's sake; 'Twixt the Bulls of Rome and Laws of England Thy children are robbed, banished and murdered. And cast away from native land, like leaves Bestrewing forest wilds, bleak and lone. Merged in lands of Liberty, thy children Shall rise again, a new born glorious race— Triumphant in home, church and State, honored, Masters of War, Wit, Eloquence and Poetry. Move out and move on, like the rising sun Whose face so oft is clouded with shadows, Yet, shall burst forth again in noonday splendor— Irradiating a bleak and cruel world!



CHAPTER XI.

RURAL ENGLAND. "ROMEO AND JULIET"

"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows; Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows; Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk roses and the eglantine."

* * * * *

"Stony limits cannot hold love out; And what love can do, that dares love attempt."

We remained in Liverpool three days, and then determined to return to London by land, crossing through the inland shires, taking in Manchester, Sheffield, Derby, Birmingham, Coventry, Warwick, and on to Stratford, where clustered the dearest objects of our affection.

We were ten days walking, riding and resting at taverns, in our rural tour of Old Albion. The fields were furrowed for the grain, the birds sang from every hedge and forest domain, the cattle, sheep and swine grazed in lowing, bleating, grunting security along winding streams, public fields or on the velvet meadows of rich yeoman or lordly estates, while the men, women, boys and girls that we encountered seemed to be infused with the delights of May blossoms, forest wild flowers and refreshing showers, all noting the practical prosperity of England.

How different these rural scenes to those we had recently encountered in poor down-trodden Ireland, the Niobe of nations, besprinkled with the tears of centuries for the loss of her crushed and exiled children.

Yet, the world is moving upward To the heights where Freedom reigns; Where the sunshine of redemption Shall give joy for all our pains, When the cruel hands of tyrants Shall be banished from the land With our God the only Master Of Dame Nature true and grand!

We arrived in sight of Stratford as the sun set over the hills of Arden, and as the pigeons and rooks sought their nests for the night, a golden glow flashed over the evening landscape.

The last rays of Sol shone in dazzling splendor upon the pinnacle of old Trinity Church as we gazed with ravished eyes on the winding, glistening Avon, meandering through emerald meadows and whispering wild flowers to the silvery Severn.

The old tavern was still there, but the old host slept in God's acre near by, while the lads we knew ten years before, had, like ourselves, gone out into the world for fame and fortune.

William sought out his father and mother, and then Anne Hathaway and the children, who still resided at the old Hathaway cottage at Shottery. I remained at the tavern for contemplation.

Time and age mellow the most violent spirits; and the temper of Anne had become modified by family troubles, inducing an inward survey of self, which brings a reasonable person to the realization of the fact that he or she is not the only stubborn oak in the forest of humanity.

A practical stubborn wife and a lofty poet never can assimilate.

Shakspere had no equals or superiors. Shakspere was simply SHAKSPERE.

At home he found a scolding wife, Abroad he felt the joys of life, While all his glory and renown Were reaped at last in London town. He looked for truth in crowds of men, In field, in street, in tavern, And mingled with the moving throng To hear their story and their song, He pictured life in colors true, As brilliant as the rainbow hue, And all his characters display The pride and passion of to-day. He cared not for the crowds of men— As fierce as beasts within a den, And looked alone to Nature's God Displayed in heaven, in sea and sod, And held the scales of justice high- Uplifted to the sunlit sky, Weighing the passions of mankind With lofty and imperial mind. The Puritan and Pope to him Were overflowing to the brim With bigotry and cruel spleen That desolated every scene. The midget minds of men in power He satirized from hour to hour, And on the stage portrayed the greed Of those who live by crime and creed. He tore the masks from royal brows And showed their guilt and broken vows, Exposing to the laughing throng The horrid face of vice and wrong. In every land and every clime, He honored truth and punctured crime, And down the years his god-like rhyme Shall be synonymous with Time!

We remained among relatives and friends in Warwickshire until the middle of September, when we heard that the London plague had abated and the theatrical profession were busy preparing for a winter campaign of dramatic glory. Shakspere had several plays partly or nearly finished, and, as Burbage and Henslowe desired our immediate services, we took our departure from Stratford, with the friendship of the town echoing in our ears.

The flowers and growing fields, the leafy forests and circling and singing birds seemed to say good-bye, good luck and God bless you!

We felt happy and hopeful ourselves, and consequently Dame Nature echoed the feeling of our souls. All was joy, song, feasting and laughter.

William, on our way to Oxford, in one of his original flights taken from an ode of Horace, impulsively exclaimed:

Laugh and the world laughs with you; Weep and you weep alone, This grand old earth must borrow its mirth, It has troubles enough of its own. Sing and the hills will answer, Sigh, it is lost on the air, The echoes bound to a joyful sound, But shrink from voicing care.

Be glad and your friends are many; Be sad and you lose them all; There are none to decline your nectared wine, But alone we must drink life's gall. There's room in the halls of pleasure, For a long and lordly train, But one by one we must all file on; Through the narrow aisles of pain.

Feast, and your halls are crowded, Fast, and the world goes by, Succeed and give, 'twill help you live; But no one can help you die! Rejoice, and men will seek you, Grieve, and they turn and go, They want full measure of all your pleasure But they do not want your woe!

These lines impressed me very much at the time and from that day to this I have never ceased to act on the philosophy of the poem.

It has been part of my nature, and during my wanderings for the past three hundred and twenty years I have never failed to carry in my train of thought and action—sunshine, beauty, song, love and laughter—advance agents to secure welcome in all hearts and homes throughout the world.

We were beautifully entertained by Mrs. Daisy Davenant at the Crown Tavern in Oxford, and many of the college "boys," who heard of our arrival in the city, hurried to pay their classic friendship to the "Divine" William.

We arrived in London on the 20th of September, and found that our old maid landlady had died of the plague, but had kindly sent all our literary and wardrobe effects to Florio, who was still alive and well at the Red Lion.

In a couple of days William was up to his head and ears in theatrical composition and stage structure.

A few years before the Bard had "dashed off" a love tragedy entitled "Romeo and Juliet," taken from an Italian novel of the thirteenth century, and a translation of the old family feud in poetry, by Walter Brooke, who had but recently delighted London with the story.

Shakspere never hesitated to take crude ore and rough ashler from any quarry of thought; and out of the dull, leaden material of others, produced characters in living form to walk the stage of life forever, teaching the lesson of virtue triumphant over vice.

The exemplification of true love, as pictured in the pure affection of Juliet and the intense, heroic devotion of Romeo, have never been equaled or surpassed by any other dramatic characters.

The lordly and wealthy gentry of Italy have been noted for their family feuds for the past three thousand years, and the party followers of these blood-stained rivals have desolated many happy homes in Rome, Florence, Milan, Naples, Venice and Verona.

Shakspere showed the finished play of "Romeo and Juliet" to Burbage, and the old manager fairly jumped with joy and astonishment at the eloquence of the love and ruin drama.

The families of Capulet and Montague of Verona, stuffed with foolish pride about the matrimonial choice of their daughters and sons, can be found in every city in the world where a tyrant father or purse-proud mother insist on selecting life partners for their children.

The story of Romeo and Juliet shows the utter failure of such parental folly.

The play was largely advertised among the lights of London and announced to come off in all its glory at the Blackfriars on the last Saturday of December, 1595.

Queen Elizabeth, in a special box, was there incog, with a royal train of lords and ladies; and such another audience for dress and stunning show was never seen in London.

Burleigh, Bacon, Essex, Southampton, Derby, Raleigh, Spenser, Warwick, Gray, Montague, Lancaster, Mountjoy, Blake, and all the great soldiers and sailors of the realm then in London were boxed for a sight of the greatest love tragedy ever enacted on the dramatic stage. All the dramatic authors were present.

William himself took the part of Romeo, for he was a perfect exemplification of the hero of the play. Jo Taylor took the part of Juliet, and I can assure you that his makeup, in the form and dress of the fourteen-year-old Italian beauty, was a great success.

Dick Burbage took the part of Friar Laurence, Condell played Mercutio, Arnim the part of Paris, Field played old Capulet, and Florio played Montague, Hemmings played Benvolio, and John Underwood played the part of Tybalt, and Escalus, the Prince, was played by Phillips.

The curtain went up on a street scene in Verona, where the partisans of the houses of Capulet and Montague quarreled, while Paris, Mercutio, Romeo and Tybalt worked up their hot blood and came to blows.

Romeo and his friends, in mask, attended a ball at the home of Juliet, in a clandestine fashion, and on first sight of this immaculate beauty Romeo exclaims:

"O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear; Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear! So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows, As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows. The dancing done, I'll watch her place of stand, And, touching hers, make happy my rude hand, Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight, For I ne'er saw true beauty till to-night!"

The poetic apostrophe of Romeo to his new discovered beauty elicited universal applause, led by the "Virgin Queen," who imagined, no doubt, that his tribute to beauty was intended for herself. She never lost an opportunity to appropriate anything that came her way. An epigram of strenuous audacity. A winner!

In the second act Romeo climbs the wall, hemming in his beautiful Juliet, and in defiance of the family feud, locks and bars of old man Capulet, and seeks a clandestine interview with his true love, although at the risk of his life.

It was the evening of the twenty-first birthday of Romeo, and with love as his guide and subject, he felt strong enough to attack a warring world.

Beneath the window of the fair Juliet, Romeo soliloquizes:

"He jests at scars, that never felt a wound— (Juliet appears at an upper window.) But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks! It is the East, and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief, That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she; Be not her maid since she is envious; Her vestal livery is but sick and green, And none but fools do wear it; cast it off— It is my lady; O, it is my love; O, that she knew she were!— She speaks, yet she says nothing: What of that: Her eye discourses, I will answer it. I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks; Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars. As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven Would through the airy region stream so bright That birds would sing, and think it were not night. See how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O, that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek!"

Juliet speaks, and finally out of her fevered, love-lit mind says:

"O, Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I'll no longer be a Capulet!"

Romeo replies:

"I take thee at thy word; Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized, Henceforth I never will be Romeo."

She says:

"How cam'st thou hither? The orchard walls are too high and hard to climb; And the place death, considering who thou art."

Romeo quickly responds:

"With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls; For stony limits cannot hold love out; And what love can do, that dares love attempt, Therefore thy kinsmen are no hindrance to me! I am no pilot, yet wert thou as far As that vast shore washed with the further sea I would adventure for such merchandise!"

Then Juliet, with her fine Italian cunning makes the following declaration of her love; and considering that she is only fourteen years of age, yet in the hands of a house nurse, older and wiser girls could not give a better gush of affectionate eloquence:

"Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face, Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek, For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night. Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain, fain, deny What I have spoke; But, farewell compliment! Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say, Ay; And I will take thy word, yet if thou swear'st, Thou may'st prove false; at lover's perjuries They say Jove laughs. O, gentle Romeo, If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully; Or, if thou think'st I am too quickly won, I'll frown and be perverse, and say thee nay, So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world, In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond; And therefore thou may'st think my conduct light; But, trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true Than those that have more cunning to be strange. I should have been more shy, I must confess, But that thou overheard'st, ere I was aware, My true love's passion; therefore, pardon me; And not impute this yielding to light love, Which the dark night hath so discovered, My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite!"

The lovers part, promising eternal love and marriage "to-morrow" at the cell of good Friar Laurence, the confessor of the fair Juliet.

The friar, priest, preacher and bishop have ever been great matrimonial matchmakers, and when "Love's young dream" is foiled or withered by parental tyranny, these velvet-handed philosophers find a way to tie the hymeneal knot, even in personal and legal defiance of cruel, social dictation.

Friar Laurence, in contemplation of tying love-knots soliloquizes in the following lofty lines:

"The gray-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night, Checkering the eastern clouds with streaks of light; And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels From forth day's pathway, made by Titan's wheels. Now ere the sun advance his burning eye, The day to cheer, and night's dark dew to try, I must fill up this osier cage of ours With baleful needs and precious-juiced flowers. The earth that's Nature's mother, is her tomb; What is her burying grave, that is her womb; And from her womb children of divers kind We sucking on her natural bosom find, Many for many virtues excellent, None, but for some, and yet all different; O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies In herbs, plants, stones and their true qualities; For naught so vile that on the earth doth live, But to the earth some special good doth give; Nor aught so good, but strained from that fair use, Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse. Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied And vice sometimes by action dignified. Within the infant rind of this small flower, Poison hath residence and medicine power, For, this being smelt, with that part cheers each part, Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. Two such opposed foes encamp them still In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will, And where the worser is predominant, Full soon the canker death eats up that plant!"

Romeo implores the holy Friar:

"Do thou but close our hands with holy words, Then love devouring death do what he dare, It is enough I may but call her mine!"

Juliet addressing Romeo in the Friar's cell exclaims:

"Imagination more rich in matter than in words, Brags of his substance, not of ornament; They are but beggars that can count their worth; But my true love is grown to such excess, I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth."

The good old Friar then says:

"Come, come with me and we will make short work; For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone Till holy church incorporate two in one!"

Mercutio and Tybalt fight, in faction of the Capulet and Montague houses. Mercutio is killed, and then Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished from the State by Prince Escalus.

Juliet awaits Romeo in her room the night after marriage, and with passionate, impatient longing exclaims:

"Give me my Romeo; and when he shall die Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so bright That all the world will be in love with night, And pay no worship to the garish sun. O, I have bought the mansion of a love, But not possessed it; and, though I am sold; Not yet enjoyed; so tedious is this day, As is the night before some festival To an impatient child that hath new robes, And may not wear them!"

Although the verdict of banishment was pronounced against Romeo to go to Mantua instanter, he found means through the old nurse and good Friar Laurence to visit his new-made bride the night before his forced departure; and in spite of locks, bars, law, parents and princes, plucked the ripe fruit from the tree of virginity.

Romeo must be gone before the first crowing of the cock and ere the rosy fingers of the dawn light up the bridal chamber, else death would be his portion.

Juliet importunes him to stay, and says:

"Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day; It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear; Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree; Believe me, love, it was the nightingale."

Romeo replies:

"It was the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale; look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder East; Night's candles are burnt, and jocund day, Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops; I must be gone and live, or stay and die!"

Juliet further implores him to stay:

"Yon light is not daylight, I know it; It is some meteor that the sun exhales; To be to thee this night a torch bearer, And light thee on thy way to Mantua; Therefore stay yet, thou need'st not be gone."

Romeo willingly consents:

"Let me be taken, let me be put to death; I am content so thou wilt have it so; I'll say yon gray is not the morning's eye, 'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow! Nor that it is not the lark, whose notes do beat The vaulty heaven so high above our heads; I have more care to stay than will to go;— Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so— How is it, my soul? Let's talk, it is not day!"

Juliet alarmed exclaims:

"It is, it is, hie hence, begone away; It is the lark that sings so out of tune, Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps. Some say the lark makes sweet division; This doth not so, for she divideth us; Some say, the lark and lothed toad change eyes; O, now I would they had changed voices too; Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray, Hunting thee hence with hunts up to the day. O, now begone; more light and light it grows."

Romeo descends the ladder, saying his last words to the beautiful Juliet:

"And trust me, love, in mine eye so do you, Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu! Adieu!"

After the banishment of Romeo, old Capulet and his wife insisted that Juliet marry young Paris, a kinsman of Prince Escalus, and sorrows unnumbered crowded on the new-made secret bride.

To escape marriage with Paris, Juliet consulted Friar Laurence, who gives her a drug to be taken the night before the prearranged marriage, that will dull all life and the body remain as dead for forty-two hours. This scheme of the Friar works out favorably until Juliet is laid away with her ancestors in the grand tomb of the Capulets.

But Romeo hears of the whole trouble and hurries back from banishment, dashing his way through all impediments until he kills Paris, grieving at midnight by the grave of Juliet.

Then, tearing his way into the tomb of Juliet throws himself upon the gorgeous bier and exclaims:

"Oh, my love! my wife! Death that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty; Thou art not conquered; beauty's ensign yet Is crimson on thy lips, and in thy cheeks, And death's pale flag is not advanced there; Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet? O, what more favor can I do thee, Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain, To sunder his that was thine enemy! Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet, Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe That unsubstantial death is amorous; And that the lean abhorred monster keeps Thee here in dark to be his paramour? For fear of that I will still stay with thee; And never from this palace of dim night Depart again; here, here will I remain With worms that are thy chambermaids; O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest; And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh; eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O, you, The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death! Come, bitter conductor, come, unsavory guide! Thou desperate pilot, now and at once run on The dashing rocks thy sea-sick, weary bark! Here's to my love! (Drinks poison.) O, true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick; thus with a kiss I die!"

Friar Laurence and Balthazar with dark lantern, at this moment approach the tomb to extricate and save Juliet from the sleeping drug. She awakes with the noise in the tomb and views the deadly situation.

The Friar implores her to come, depart at once, as the night watch approach. She says:

"Go, get thee hence, for I will not away; What's here? a cup close in my true love's hand; Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end; O churl! drink all; and leave me no friendly drop To help me after? I will kiss thy lips; Haply, some poison yet doth hang on them, To make me die with a restorative. Thy lips are warm! Yea, noise? Then I'll he brief. O happy dagger! (Snatches Romeo's dagger.) This is thy sheath, there rust and let me die!" (Stabs herself through the heart.)

The Prince, Capulet and Montague family soon discover all, and Friar Laurence tells the true story, punishment follows, and the two contending houses of Verona clasp hands over the ruin they have wrought, while the Prince exclaims:

"For, never was a story of more woe, Than this of Juliet and her Romeo!"

The drop curtain was rung down and up three times, and the storm of applause that greeted Shakspere and Taylor, as the representatives of Romeo and Juliet, was never equaled before at the Blackfriars.

The Queen called William and Jo to the royal box and by her own firm hand presented a signet ring to Romeo and a lace handkerchief to Juliet!

"What fates impose, that men must needs abide; It boots not to resist both wind and tide!"



CHAPTER XII.

"JULIUS CAESAR."

"O mighty Caesar! Dost thou lie so low? Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils Shrunk to this little measure?"

The assassination of Julius Caesar by Brutus, Cassius, Casca and twenty other Roman Senators, in the capital of the Empire in broad daylight, was one of the most cowardly and infamous crimes recorded in the annals of time.

The historical and philosophical friends of Brutus and Cassius have tried to justify the conspiracy and assassination by imputing the deep design of tyranny to Caesar, who was bent on trampling down the rights of the people and securing for himself a kingly crown.

They say the motive of the conspirators in the deep damnation of Caesar's "taking off" was purely patriotism. Many murderers have used the same argument.

The facts do not justify the excuse. For more than thirty years Julius Caesar had been a star performer on the boards of the Roman Empire, and his family had been illustrious for five hundred years. Sylla, Marius, Cicero, Cato, Brutus and Pompey had crossed lances with this civil and military genius, and had all become very jealous of his increasing fame.

From boyhood Caesar had been a mixer with the common people, and in midnight hours in Rome, among tradesmen, merchants, students, authors, sailors and soldiers, he became imbued with their wants and impulsive nature. He had no reason to doubt or oppress the people.

As commander of invincible troops in Spain, Gaul, Germany and Britain, Caesar had secured a world-wide reputation, for the eagles of his victorious legions had swept across the mountains and seas to the shore end of Europe and screamed in triumph among the palms and sands of Africa and Asia!

Caesar was a poet, orator, historian, warrior and statesman, and the imperial families and politicians of Rome, who were forced to sit in the shade of his triumphs and glory, felt a secret pang of jealousy at the stride of this colossal character.

He was the pride and idol of his soldiers, and whether in the forests of Gaul and Germany, the swamps of Britain, mountains of Spain, or among Ionian isles, his presence was ever worth a thousand men in battle action.

His plans were mathematical, his soul sublime and his purpose eternal victory!

Bravery and Caesar were synonymous terms, and the little, mean, pismire ambitions of Roman politicians he despised, striding over their corrupt schemes for pelf and office like a winter whirlwind.

Brutus, while professing horror at the contemplated assassination of his friend and natural father Caesar, lent a willing ear and sympathetic voice to the prime conspirator—Cassius; and although seemingly dragged into the murderous plot, he was in heart the grand villain of the conspiracy, believing he might rise to supreme control of the Roman Empire when Julius the Great lay weltering in his heroic blood.

Brutus was a dastard, an ingrate, a coward and a murderer, and no pretense of patriotism can save him from the contempt and condemnation of mankind. There is no justification for assassination!

The death of Caesar was the first great blow in the final destruction of the Roman Empire, for up to this time the people had a voice in electing their tribunes, consuls and governors, and were consulted as to the burden of taxation, although many of their previous rulers had been terrible tyrants.

Brutus and Cassius, and their coconspirators, city senators, who dipped their hands in Caesar's sacred blood, were finally driven from all political power, their estates confiscated, fleeing like frightened wolves to foreign fields and forests and perishing in battle as enemies to their country.

When brought to bay at Philippi, Brutus and Cassius mustered up enough courage to commit suicide, which is confession of guilt.

In the winter of 1597 William was deeply studying the new translation of Petrarch, and Florio was nightly teaching us the lofty philosophy of Grecian and Roman classics. The lives of noted ancient poets, orators, warriors, statesmen, governors, kings and philosophers, as written or compiled by the great Plutarch has furnished a mine of historic thought for the dramatic artist, and Shakspere, above all the men who ever thought, wrote or talked on the stage, took most advantage of the lines of Plutarch.

The British people were clamoring for grand historical plays, not only for the actions of their own kings and queens, but demanded the enactment of the reigns of great, ancient warriors and kings who had given glory to Greece and Rome and left imperishable memories for posterity to avoid or emulate.

Burbage, Henslowe and other theatrical managers, were ever on the lookout for plays to suit cash customers, and of course, the Bard of Avon had first call, because his plays went on the various stages like a torchlight procession, while those of his so-called compeers, struggled through the acts and scenes with only the flicker and sputter of tallow dips of dramatic thought.

He knew, and I knew, that his plays would be enacted down the circling centuries as long as vice and virtue, hate and love, cowardice and bravery, fun, folly, wit and wisdom characterized humanity.

William told Essex and Southampton that he had just composed a play with Julius Caesar as the central figure, and wished an opportunity to test its merits before a private party of authors, students and lords at the Holborn House, the grand castle of Southampton.